The 7 Types of Social Media Sites

Social Media

Social media is a hot topic these days, but did you know there are more types of sites than just Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter?  Myspace just fired almost half of their staff and is changing to be less of a social media site and more of an entertainment launch pad.  Facebook and Twitter are growing, but there are other types of social media sites out there.

The Seven Types Of Social Media Sites

1. Social Networks (Facebook, Myspace)
2. Blogs (Blogger, Wordpress)
3. Bookmarking Sites (Delicious, Ma.gnolia, StumbleUpon)
4. Microblogging Sites (Twitter, Plurk)
5. Media Sharing Sites (YouTube, Flickr)
6. Popularity Sites (Digg, Reddit)
7. Aggregators (Flock, FriendFeed, Streamy)

All seven of these categories are important to explore because the are all connected with each other.  Social media has the potential to spread a message farther and faster than any other vehicle.  You can use multiple types of social media sites to spread the message about your product or your company.  Knowing which sites are the current trends or hot spots is a big advantage in getting your message out, building your brand, and capitalizing off of marketing efforts.  The more types of sites you are familiar with and using, the better your chances of getting a good spreading sneeze response to your message.

Are you exploring more than one of the seven types of social media?

The Social Media Sneeze Principal

Social Media Sharing

The Social Media Sneeze Principal

The most important thing to understand about the nature of social media is The Sneeze Principle.  The various types of social media allow a visitor to read an article or blog post, watch a video, or see some other form of content.  That visitor can then "Sneeze" or somehow indicate what he thinks of the content by leaving a comment, bookmarking the site, clicking on a Fan Box or a Like box, or any other form of social media sharing.

That is the Sneeze Effect.  When one visitor sneezes, otehr see that sneeze.  Others will then go and look at that same content.  They may also sneeze and spread it to their circle of friends or followers, who in turn could sneeze again sending it even father.  Every view has the opportunity to sneeze and share the message with others.  A great post can be far more than you can reach alone, thanks to social media and its sneezing effects.

So be sure to have easy and highly visible access to popular social media platforms.  If you look at the top of my page, under the header, you can see the row of buttons.  This makes sharing or sneezing the posts or site easy for everyone to spread.

Sneeze Factor / Viral Effect in Action

You do have buttons for your readers to sneeze don't you?

Social Media Mega List

The Social Media Mega List at Wikipedia gives tons of information on various social media sites, their enrollment numbers, and what niche they are focused towards.

Social media is an excellent tool for growing your site.  Sites like Twitter, MySpace, and Facebook have plenty of users that you can reach out to for growing your site.  Digg, StumbleUpon, and Reddit can bring you tons of new page views in a moment's notice.  Some sites may be more useful than others depending on your business strategy or your marketing niche.

What I suggest is start off with just one social media site.  Join up and learn how it works.  Then you can start to relay posts to your social media site, or send tweets to your blog posts.  Just start off to learn and grow your follower base.  Once you understand how the site works, you can start using it as a tool to grow your site.

Twitter is probably the easiest to start out on as it is the least complex of the major 3 social media sites.